Griffin House and Xavier Rudd

Xavier Rudd on Wednesday at Variety Playhouse. I was very excited about this show because it was such a great venue for Xavier and I think he is amazing!Our last adventure to see the elusive Xavier turned in a really great show that we really enjoyed despite the craziness of the logistics. This show was right down the street at one of my favorite venues.

The show was scheduled for 8pm on a Wednesday night. As I have grown older and go to bed early during the week I always hold out my hope that the artist will be ontime and be considerate of it being a work night. Xavier I assume has never worked a really job and so does not have a concept of a 'work night'...his opening act was awesome though!

Griffin House was a breath of fresh air for an opener. The last half dozen shows I've seen had terrible, awful opening acts, Xavier's last opener was dreadfully bad. Matt and I weren't expecting much, but were completely impressed by Griffin House. He had a clean, smooth and interesting voice with catchy, smart and fresh songs mixed with sweet, romantic almost comedy like songs. He was very good with just him and the guitar and had a comfortable, relaxed stage presence which is something I really admire in a performer. He told personal stories that related his songs and made them more fun with the background. Like the story about his grandfather shooting this video with him and how his grandpa got to the set and was like, 'how is this going to take 3 days?'

I really like that when a performer is engaged with the audience and really performs FOR the people. We enjoyed him so much I went down after his set and bought a CD. I haven't purchased a real life CD in about a year in the digital download age! I didn't wait in the colossal long line to get it signed, but I was happy to have just been treated to the show and to have found new talent.

After another 45 minutes Xavier finally took the stage at 10:30pm. I hadn't downloaded the new album, as it didn't strike my fancy at first. He did several songs that really impressed me from it- Dark Shades of Blue and Edge of the Moon were familiar in the classic Rudd style, although lacked the digeroo sound that he is known for. The songs were all heavy on the slide guitar and drums. His drummer is really good, and makes the show. My disappointment (other than the lateness of the evening) was Rudd's lack of interaction with the audience. The place was almost sold out and although he thanked us numerous times, and bowed in gratitude I felt there wasn't much of a connection. It was very inpersonal I thought. It is like he just 'performs' and tries to pretend the audience isn't really there.

We were so tired as the 11 o'clock hour rolled by, we finally dodged out like old foggeys. We left as he did his 'flagship' Let Me Be. I hated leaving before it was over, but I also didn't feel that I was really missing anything. The show was pretty much the same as the Nashville show and as Matt pointed out alot of the new songs sound an awful lot like his old songs. There wasn't much variety. All in all, Xavier is a great show if you have not seen him before. However as a fan, I was disappointed in the lack of growth in his show. If Griffin House comes though town we definately will be catching that show! I think with his band that would be a lot of fun!